How do I find out about concerts? How do I get more details about something I heard over the air? How do I submit events to WORT’s Music Calendars? Who do I contact with changes or cancellations?

WORT’s Music Calendars are a great resource to find out about concerts in all genres and places. Usually you’ll find details in the online listing or links to get more information. There’s a link to to submit your event at the top of the calendar page. You can also submit events, changes and cancellations to calendar@wortfm.org.

Contact Information

Music Director: Sybil Augustine – musicdirector@wortfm.org (for music submissions, charts and tracking, promotional exchanges for music events and following up on volunteer applications or other requests. Please include specifics in your subject line, such as “Hiphop Music Submission” etc, )

How do I get my music played on WORT?

We accept submissions in most genres and styles of music, focusing on noncommercial, out-of-the-mainstream, independent releases (check out our playlists and music charts for more information.) It may take up to a few weeks for us to review and process your submission so we appreciate your patience, and feel free to contact us to follow up. Please send your music, indicating any tracks with language that needs to be aired after 10 pm and including a one-sheet description and any biographical and tour information, to WORT Music Director, 118 S. Bedford St, Madison, WI 53703 and/or to musicdirector@wortfm.org.

We do accept digital files on .wav or mp3, but currently we still prefer CDs to digital submissions because it’s the quickest way to get it into the hands of our programmers and onto the airwaves, though we have a growing digital library. Digital submissions should be .wav or other lossless files, or high quality mp3s [128-320 kbps.]

You can follow up or “track” your submissions by email, or call 608-256-2001 on Wednesdays between 1-4 pm CST to ask if we received it, has it been reviewed, has it been added to our library, and what kind of airplay it’s getting—e.g. light, medium, heavy or charting. Thanks and we look forward to hearing your music!

WORT Music Playlists

What was that song I heard? Who was the artist, what is the album title, where can I get it? Where can I find the entire playlist for a show?

Click on the Playlists button to bring up a calendar where you can choose any date to find the playlists for that day. If you can’t find the right playlist or the song you’re looking for, your best bet is to call the station the next time that program’s on and ask the host yourself. If that’s not possible we may be able to help you, but please have as much information as possible at hand when you contact us, such as: approximate day and time the music was played, what type or genre of music it was, who hosted the show and any other information you remember about the selection and we’ll do our best to track it down.

Once you figure it out, there’s a “Buy It!” link next to each track in online playlists that leads you to a place where you can buy songs and albums, and by doing it that way a small portion of each purchase goes to support WORT.

Sebastian Rotella: Migrants from South of the Mexican Border

On Wednesday December 12, host Jan Miyasaki spoke with Sebastian Rotella, an award winning foreign correspondent and a senior investigative reporter at ProPublica, Sebastian Rotella. Prior to working at ProPublica, Sebastian worked for the L.A.Times for twenty three years. He has most recently been focusing on changes in immigration patterns, especially migrants coming in to the United States from south of the Mexican border, a group that is often not focused on.

Says Sebastian, “Overall illegal immigration has gone down a lot, even though sometimes the political debates make it seem like it’s out of control. And the proportions have changed – what my story shows is that although Mexicans are still the biggest group that crosses, the proportions have changed dramatically.”

Sebastian explains that the number of Central Americans crossing into the U.S. has substantially risen, especially those from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, countries especially faced with violence and poverty. The demographic of this group is largely young adults who are traveling alone. While there are relatively fewer obstacles to face when crossing into the Southern Mexican border, the migrants face numerous problems at the Mexican-American border, where they are highly vulnerable to extortion, robbery, rape and murder by gangsters, smugglers, and corrupt officials.

The Mexican drug cartels also play a heavy role in the thriving smuggling business.Sebastian explains that many of the youth are escaping the environment of violence from their hometowns, but only encounter more violence at the hands of those networked around the smugglers. He describes a situation of “systematic recruitment” by the drug cartels at the border.

Sebastian had interviewed two individuals from Ecuador, Marco and his wife, who paid $11,000 per person to come to New York, “They move through a very loose but highly organized network – they were given a phone number and a codeword… They started in Ecuador, and went to Honduras where they stayed at a safe house, to Guatemala, and then to Mexico.” At Mexico, they had been placed on a train alone where they got caught by Mexican officials. Sebastian explains that although they were disappointed, the couple was also relieved that they did not have to go through the most dangerous part of the smuggling process that was still to come at the Mexican-American border.

The detention centers, Sebastian describes, were packed fully with migrants from across Central America and Mexico who were caught. After the migrants are discharged from the detention centers, they are deported back to their respective countries in Central or South America. However, for migrants from countries in Asia and Africa, the situation is often more complicated, “…particularly for those from India or East Africa, sometimes you have people who are stateless, or who refuse to say where they are from, so in that case they may end up staying in Mexico as refugees…”